Viruses PC-Mac-PC

[Akkarin]

Can a windows virus be in a file and infect a windows machine then the file is moved on to a mac (does nothing there) but when copied back over to another windows machine would it infect it also?

Just wondering if keeping files on a Mac server is going to stop all the viruses on my windows file server I run. It was wiped out of .exe files a couple weeks back by a virus. All gone! And I had loads on there. I am not even fixing it I am just going to set up a Mac file server...mabye use my mini with a huge external attached to it. Problem is I still need to copy loads of files over to the Mac file server. Norton says no virus but like I trust it. And I will still keep windows machines on my network. So they might get hit when they pull files off the Mac if viruses stay alive when moved to a Mac.

Yeah I use anti-virus software but that is not always working with crappy windows. They put out the fixes after the virusrs has screwed your machine over. This is one of the many reasons I am going Mac.

I don't even do anything really high risk to get them I can see! Just normal computing.

Does this even make any sense lol?

 

[andyhargreaves]

I would think viruses could be transmitted in this way, as the mac file server would not do anything to the files, just pass them around.

As for anti-virus, all my Windows machines have AVG installed and kept up to date, and I've never had problems. Of course the macs are fine too!!

Not sure if this thread belongs here though. Maybe it should be moved to the switchers section (Mods??)

Andy

 

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Can a windows virus be in a file and infect a windows machine then the file is moved on to a mac (does nothing there) but when copied back over to another windows machine would it infect it also?

Yes, extremely possible. In fact, that's exactly what would happen.

Just wondering if keeping files on a Mac server is going to stop all the viruses on my windows file server I run.

No... simply transferring a file to a Macintosh does not automatically disinfect the file -- the bytes that make up the file are still exactly the same regardless of whether it's stored on a Windows machine or a Macintosh, meaning the virus is still there. While it won't infect the Mac, as soon as a Windows machine accesses/executes the file, the Windows machine will be infected -- even if they access the file WHILE it's stored on the Macintosh server.

If it were as simple as copying the file to a non-Windows computer, Windows users could stop paying their yearly corporate anti-virus subscriptions and simply pick up an old Mac for ~$100 to stop all their virus woes.